


Boom. I Just Blew Your Mind, Didn't I?

by burnthepasttotheground



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics)
Genre: Gen, season 10
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-26 22:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5023138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnthepasttotheground/pseuds/burnthepasttotheground
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander's sessions with Dr. Mike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Session One

**Author's Note:**

> I would love feedback on this! I'm not 100% sure where to go with it yet, so you definitely have the opportunity to influence how this turns out. I hope you like the beginning!

_“I just think you might need a little perspective on appropriate responses to stressful situations before you do anything else.”_

Dawn’s words bumped around in his brain as he sat in an otherwise empty waiting room twiddling his thumbs. An old boombox in the corner was tuned to a rather insipid talk radio station, with the volume just loud enough to drown out any noise that might escape Dr. Roberts’ office. For privacy reasons, Xander assumed.

There were a few magazines strewn across a coffee table, but he couldn’t bring himself to read any of them. For one thing, most of them were gossip magazines, so he was sure to encounter Harmony’s striking undead face gazing up at him from the pages. For another thing, he didn’t think he could focus enough to read anything at the moment. Even if he could, he would likely come across some made-up good vampire crap that Harmony or her cronies had spread to the media, which would undoubtedly annoy him. No, false. Xander didn’t get annoyed anymore; he just got angry. Too angry, if he was being honest with himself. Which was what he was trying to do. Be honest with himself, that is. It was how he had wound up here, after all.

Dawn had broached the subject of his overreactions on a few occasions, and even got Dowling to recommend him a counselor—a guy who sometimes counsels SFPD officers—but Xander had refused to get any help. This was the end of the road, though. He and Dawn had broken up, things were awkward, and he still couldn’t shake the guilt from the Incident at the Deeper Well. Xander didn’t have much to lose. So he’d scheduled an appointment with Dowling’s recommended counselor. Ghost Anya had even supported the idea. Although the jury was still out on whether or not she was actually a ghost or just his subconscious rearing its ugly head to give him a well-deserved verbal thrashing. Either way.

And maybe Dawn would be proud of him.

A few more minutes passed, and he cursed himself—not literally, of course, he’d learned not to screw around with the magicks long ago—for arriving so early. His mind wandered some more. He tried to think of what he would say when Dr. Roberts asked him why he was there—which had to be a thing. Therapists couldn’t just know what your problem was. Right? Xander had never been to a therapist before. His parents had seen a marriage counselor at one point, but it hadn’t exactly helped. Unless you counted staying together when they should have been divorced as a victory. But his parents hadn’t really tried. They had gone to counseling, sure, but he’d never seen them making an effort at home. Xander was going to try, dammit, and that meant that he had to reflect on how he’d gotten here.

_“When did you get so… angry? I like it.”_

Ugh. Even if he’d never realized before, he really should have noticed he had a problem when Simone _freaking_ Doffler noted his anger. And she’d _liked_ it. Xander shuddered a little just thinking about it.

Just then the office door opened and a middle-aged woman stepped out in front of a younger man who Xander presumed was Dr. Roberts.

“See you next week,” she proclaimed and headed out of the building.

Well, he guessed that meant it was his turn now.

“Alexander?” the other man asked.

“Just Xander is fine,” he replied, standing up.

“Hi, Xander. I’m Mike,” he said, extending his hand for a shake; Xander responded in kind. “Or Dr. Mike, if you’d like. Come on in.”

Xander followed Dr. Ro—Dr. Mike into his office, which looked more like a small living room than an office. There was a couch on one side of the room and two armchairs on the other.

“Have a seat.” Dr. Mike gestured toward the couch as he took a seat in one of the armchairs. Xander sat down obediently. “I just have a couple things for you to fill out before we get started. The first one is just your typical psychotherapy waiver, and the second is for insurance.”

He handed him a clipboard and pen, and Xander began filling out the paperwork.

“So you were referred by Detective Dowling?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“So you’re familiar with the … _supernatural_ scene?”

Xander sighed as he finished the insurance form and handed the clipboard back to Dr. Mike. “Very familiar.”

“That’s fine,” Dr. Mike nodded. “I’m prepared for that. I just like to know a little bit about where my patients are coming from.”

“Where I’m coming from is Sunnydale, actually. The ‘supernatural scene’ is kind of my main scene.”

“Okay.”

“This is all confidential, right?” He wanted to establish this before divulging too much about the Scoobies. He wasn’t anxious to be betraying his friends again any time soon. That path led to no good.

“Yes. Anything you say here is between me and you unless you threaten to harm yourself or others. Then I am mandated to report it.”

“Okay. Well, I’m from Sunnydale and my best friend is Buffy Summers.”

“Buffy--?”

“The vampire slayer, yeah. I held a pretty high position in the Slayer Organization myself at one point.”

“Wow. Alright, Xander, I’m sure I’ll be learning more about this very soon, but first off—what brings you here today?”

He _knew_ it! “Um. Anger … issues, mostly.”

“And what do ‘anger issues’ entail for you?” Dr. Mike had begun jotting things down as they spoke. Xander wondered if it was just a transcript or if it was something else.

“Being angry mostly,” he replied, scratching the back of his head. “I mean irrationally, inappropriately angry.”

“All the time? Or when?”

“Uh… as a response to stressful situations, so … yeah, pretty much all the time.”

A weak smile flashed across Dr. Mike’s face, and Xander felt a dash of pride in someone appreciating his patented brand of humor in the face of serious issues.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t easy growing up on a hellmouth.”

 _Dang_. Dr. Mike was quick on the uptake.

“Not exactly,” Xander responded, leaving it at that.


	2. Session Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably worth putting a trigger warning for mention of canon character deaths and brief mention of what would probably be construed as abuse. It's not really any heavier than the show/comics.
> 
> This chapter takes place roughly between "I Wish Part I" and "I Wish Part II." I'm trying to keep it mostly consistent with what we see in canon.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

The remainder of Xander’s first session with Dr. Mike, as he had decided to call him, was mostly spent going over the basics. Since Xander had never participated in any form of psychotherapy before, he’d needed to be briefed on the general proceedings, and then they’d decided to pass the small amount of time remaining by talking about the main players in Xander’s life.  Not that Xander felt that would be of supreme importance in the future; he was going to therapy to fix _himself_ , not his friends. But he was still getting the hang of this whole psychotherapy thing, so maybe it would prove significant.

He was probably going to find out soon, anyway, since he was making his way to his second session from the new apartment across town. It’d been an absolute _joy_ to tell Spike where he was going.  Not that he was necessarily embarrassed to be going to therapy; he just wasn’t entirely thrilled with the idea of his undead housemate being the first person he broached the subject with.

Eventually he arrived at Dr. Mike’s office and entered the waiting area.  Glancing at his watch, he congratulated himself on achieving his goal of showing up a little less early than last time. Alas, he still had roughly five minutes until his appointment slot, so he sat down and picked up a magazine which looked fairly safe—Highlights Kids. No Harmony to be found there. He was in the middle of a “spot the difference” game when Dr. Mike came to get him.

“So,” he began, once they were seated.

“So,” Xander parroted back.

“Usually we can start talking about whatever you feel like, and then explore where that takes us. As long as you’re comfortable with that.”

“Okay…”

Dr. Mike smiled kindly. “A lot of times I start off with ‘how are you?’ or ‘how was your week?’”

“Oh. Okay,” Xander replied, both relieved at the direction and skeptical at how much he could actually divulge to Dr. Mike. Just how freaky was the guy willing to get? Supernatural-wise. After all, it’d been a hell of a week, what with the Hamelin Demon debauchery and the freshly de-haunted new apartment moving-into. He pondered a moment, then settled on, “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Try me.”

“Well, I got a new place. Rent-controlled.”

“I’m terrified.”

“We had to de-ghostify it first. At least, that’s what we were told. Turns out it was a demon creeping the place up.” Xander stopped to look at Dr. Mike, to see how he was holding up with the demon chatter.

“I’m listening,” Dr. Mike said, apparently sensing the reason for Xander’s pause.

“Uh, well. It was a Hamelin Demon,” he explained. “Long story short—it infected us and tried to shove us all into some sort of ideal childhood. All we really had to do was reject it,” Xander shrugged.

“It was playing some sort of mind trick on you? I’d imagine that could be a difficult situation.”

“I’ve fought worse battles.”

“Yeah,” Dr. Mike replied thoughtfully, “I’d guess so, if you’re friends with Buffy Summers.”

“She actually had a harder time with this one than Willow and I did.”

Dr. Mike raised his eyebrows.

“She had a rough childhood, the Buffster. Didn’t wanna let go of this good one, I guess.”

“So do you mean you’d already had an ideal childhood and didn’t need this fake one?”

He had to snort at that one. “I’d answer a strong ‘no’ to that.”

“No?”

“Nah. I mean, it’s not like I was forced to stand alone against the forces of darkness or anything. Just the usual. Drunk father, yelling mother. Warm fuzzies all around.”

“You say that as if it’s nothing.”

“Well, it is now. Bigger fish to fry, you know? Besides, I haven’t spoken to my parents since Sunnydale. I don’t think about them.”

“Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Is it okay if we just kind of unpack your experience?”

Xander wanted to say no. It’d be a waste of time to go over his childhood experiences when he was here to get help for his current problems. But, in an effort to not be his parents, he decided to help Dr. Mike do his thing. “Fine.”

“You say you had a drunk father and a yelling mother. That had to have had some effect on you when you were a child.”

“I guess. You learn to cope with it after a while.”

“How did you cope?”

“I don’t know. Like in middle school I would yell back. Get into fights right there with ‘em. Never worked out, though,” he finished, making eye contact with Dr. Mike. After a beat, he continued, “So sometime in high school I just started leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Well, not _leaving_ leaving,” Xander replied, remembering Buffy’s post-Angel stint in LA. “Staying out later, sleeping outside once in a while, general avoidance. Worked better than fighting back at least. What was the point? There was nothing I could do.”

“Hmm. Can you think of any other situation that brought out the fighter in you?”

“Like what?”

“Any other times you wanted to fight. I guess for you that could be verbally or physically.”

“Uh, sure. I mean it happened a lot back in the day. Physically after my friend—. Well, after that, I was pretty much ready to fight anything.”

“Can you tell me after what?”

“My friend Jesse. He, uh … got turned.”

“Into—?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” Not that it didn’t hurt to think about.

“I imagine you wanted to fight … the thing that did that to him?”

“Yeah, that was the goal.”

“That’s understandable. Did it ever feel like a … daunting sort of task?”

“Yeah? I don’t know. I had to do _something_. And if Buffy could do it…”

“Why did you _have_ to do something? If Buffy was there.”

“I couldn’t just not do anything! He was my best friend, I couldn’t just stand by while the things that did that—”

“No, it’s understandable,” Dr. Mike interjected, throwing his hand in the air. “I’m not judging you, Xander, don’t worry.”

“Sorry.” Xander feared he may have overreacted a tad. How appropriate.

“So you didn’t want to sit around feeling helpless. You needed to _act_.”

“Right.”

“Now, can you think of any other situation where you wanted to fight?”

“Um… I guess keeping with the blast from the past theme, there was the … Angel debacle.”

“With … angels?!”

Xander chuckled. Dr. Mike was definitely hip to the supernatural scene, but not exactly experienced. “No. Angel’s a … person.”

“Why the pause?”

“Well, he’s a vampire. Technically.”

“Technically.”

“He has a soul,” he explained, “though you’d never guess it half the time.”

“Like Spike?”

Oh, right. He’d already filled Dr. Mike in on the current incarnation of the Scoobies. Plus he’d been referred here by Dowling, after all.

“Yeah. Mostly. Angel’s soul is kind of … faulty.”

Xander watched as Dr. Mike’s face went from curious to flat-out intrigued. “What does that mean?” he asked, sounding less like a therapist and more like an inquisitive child.

“Well,” Xander began, not wanting to get into all the gory Buffy and Angel details, “he didn’t choose to have a soul, like Spike. He was cursed with it. So if he feels true happiness, it, uh, disappears.”

“So then what happens?”

“Well he’s a soulless monster. Not pretty.”

“So what was the Angel debacle?”

Xander sighed, already regretting hopping on the blast from the past train. “Nothing, really. He was dating Buffy and it was just a” _total clusterfuck_ “whole disaster.”

“Why a disaster?”

“Well, I’d been saying all along that he was no good, and then he lost his soul and—”

“There was nothing you could do about it?”

“I mean I tried to warn them. And maybe I had some less-than-noble motives, too, but, still, no one ever listens to Xander.”

“Hmm. Now can we revisit the situation that made you seek counseling?”

“What, Dawn?”

“Mmhmm. Can you tell me a little more about what’s going on there?”

“Uh, well, nothing. That’s kind of the issue. We’re broken up… ish.”

“What brought that on?”

This was just turning into a whole hour of explaining the supernatural to Dr. Mike. Luckily, the man looked pretty interested, which made it less of a chore to explain. Xander took a deep breath and began. “She was created by magic and then this last year when we basically turned magic off and back on again, the same kind of thing happened to her. So she got reset to the factory defaults, and she doesn’t feel what she felt before.”

Xander stopped talking when Dr. Mike raised his hand like he needed a moment. “Sorry, what?”

“Dawn used to be a key—it’s not important. Basically she’s been reset and hasn’t caught up with all the feelings of the past five or so years. Feelings which are kind of vital to, y’know.”

“Your relationship?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve been acting out?”

“A little. Not as bad as when she was sick.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, she was fading without magic in the world, and I couldn’t figure out what to do about it, and no one was doing anything, so…”

“So you got angry?”

Xander recalled Simone’s words and felt a jolt of ick. “Yeah.”

“Xander, do you always act out in situations where you feel helpless?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’ve only really had one full session, but it seems like your anger issues might stem from feelings of helplessness.”

“Huh.”

“So do you think you always go into a rage when a situation feels out of your hands?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, then added, “Sometimes I just summon a musical demon to solve the world’s problems. Depends on the day, really.”

“What?” Dr. Mike asked, bemused.

“Oh, it’s nothing. One time I was afraid to marry my fiancée, so I summoned a musical demon hoping that it would make everything easier and supply a happy ending for us. Just typical Scooby antics.” Xander tried to play down his own stupidity.

“You never mentioned you were engaged.”

“Oh,” he replied matter-of-factly, “Well, I was. Anya was … amazing,” Ghost Anya probably thought he was choosing his words just to please her, but he meant it. She was amazing.

“But that didn’t work out?”

“Nah,” Xander waved a hand dismissively. “I butchered any chance we had for happiness. Plus she died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not all bad; I’ve been talking to her ghost on a regular basis,” he responded nonchalantly.

“Is that normal? Aren’t there … exorcisms or something?”

“Oh, sure, I’m just, y’know, not sure if she’s real. Still kind of on the fence.”

“What else could she be?”

Xander shrugged. “Some other part of my brain. My subconscious.”

Dr. Mike sighed, “We’re out of time. I think we should pick back up with this topic next time.”

“Fine by me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said I would really love any feedback on this as it is still a WIP which I would really love to continue, and ideas are always good :)  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
